Oilers forced to call up emergency goalie with Mike Smith injured again.

The Edmonton Oilers have been in something of a funk as of late, going 2 - 7  - 1 over the course of their last 10 games, and it sounds like things may have just gotten a little more difficult for them at a bad time.

On Saturday National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman reported that veteran netminder Mike Smith would be sidelined once again due to injury, news that has become all too familiar for fans of the Oilers over the course of the past few seasons. The 39 year old Smith has appeared in just 5 games for the Oilers this season, putting up very mediocre numbers with a 3.91 goals against average and an .897 save percentage over those 5 appearances, and now it sounds like he will miss some time keeping him out of action for the foreseeable future.

As a result of Smith's absence due to injury the Oilers have been forced to make adjustments and have now called up 23 year old Ilya Konovalov from the taxi squad under emergency conditions. It would appear as though the reintroduction of the taxi squad is already paying off for the Oilers, and it will be interesting to see if Konovalov gets a shot at playing at the NHL level during this call up.

Konovalov has looked fairly mediocre himself during his 10 appearances in the American Hockey League this season with a 2.48 goals against average and a .900 save percentage, but he is only one season removed from a strong performance for Yaroslavl Lokomotiv of the Kontinental Hockey League with a 2.29 goals against average and a .923 save percentage over 19 games with that team.

This is of course a less than ideal situation for the Oilers but the fact that it comes as the team is struggling makes it that much worse. In spite of a strong start to the season this recent slump from the Oilers has seen them fall all the way to 4th in the Pacific Division, not exactly the ideal time to be losing one of your goaltenders.

Sportsnet's Nick Alberga has suggested that the Oilers could soon look to the waiver wire to find another goaltender, although the likelihood of that could very well depend on the severity of Smith's injury.